Dear Puppy,
Dear Puppy,
Hello Baby,
Oooh! You sent me a story! That was so thoughtful of you! I LOVE stories. In fact, since you took the trouble to type out a (part of a) long story for me, I'm going to return the favour. However, since I am only a puppy and my unevolved, canine brain is incapable of deep, philosophical thought, I will type out a racy detective story for you. This is the first part from one of those books that your mom, Dr. (Mrs.) Iyengar likes to read in her spare time. She even reads to me once in a while.
Chapter 1: In the Beginning, There Was Optimism
After two minutes of meditative inaction, Kann sped out of his apartment complex to the crime scene.
To be continued…
K9 Unit – sniffa dog 4eva!!!11one
The Ornots
| "He passed the stages of his age and youth | |
| Entering the whirlpool. | |
| Gentile or Jew | |
| O you who turn the wheel and look to windward, | 320 |
| Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you." - The Wasteland, T.S Eliot. |
The hour glass of morality topples from time to time. And the grains of value in one section slowly slip in to the empty but slowly filling bottom. Villains of one era become the heroes of the other. And vice versa, of course. Grains that were the last to slip in to the apparently despicable bottom during one toppling epoch are the first to be perverted in the next.
And vice versa, of course.
Chandrashekhar Ornot aka Chandra rode on one such grain. He belonged to the family of hereditary skeptics who questioned their values and changed their lifestyle every alternate generation. So thorough was their belief in this way of moral evaluation, that after ages and ages they had come up with an extensive corpus of documents that enlisted every aspect of life (as discovered by them in all their limitations of visualizing the infinte spectrum that is life) Generation after generation, the eldest son in the family would be given to the cause with a heavy heart by the mother. He would then spend the next few years of his life putting a simple “Or Not” in the end of every “Rule of Life”, alternatively if there existed an “Or Not” already, he would have to erase it. Chandra was the eldest son of Mr. Ravikrishnan. He had to follow this tradition as did his father and all other elder sons of the Ornot lineage.
Chandra was not quite unhappy with his Ornot lineage. He liked his family. He loved them more than anyone else in this world. But some idle Tuesday, whilst watching kids play, he would wonder how normal and laid back a life of a conformist must be. He was not envious of conformists. But some where deep inside his heart, he felt it was cool to conform. It made life simple he thought. Simple enough to bother being an unwarranted maverick and adjust with people who dislike rebellion. Simple enough to avoid wasting long intelligent man hours in philosophizing life. Simple enough to circumvent the responsibility of coming up with newer “Fundamental Truths”. Truths, that will give way to new “Rules of life” for his eldest son to “Or Not”.
He felt sorry for his father. His father had spent a long time coming up with innovative “Rules of life”. He had lived those rules religiously. He had dedicated his entire life towards his principles. Principles that would change the way people thought, that would revolutionize an entire generation. He had to watch his only son, “Or Not” all that. He had to watch his son conform to all the old traditions and truths of his forefathers that he spent his whole life “Or not”ing. Every night, when he closed his eyes, Chandra saw the agonized face of his father. He couldn’t sleep. He couldn’t fathom the amount of pain he had caused his father just to continue the way of his ancestors - the same list of ancestors that his father was a member of.
Chandra had a gargantuan task in front of him. He had spent all of his adolescence and most of his early youth negating the “Book of Rules”. He now had to meditate upon some of his own rules. He had to research life and find new truths. This, he knew, took a lot of contemplation. It wasn’t that he was unsure of himself but he was now questioning the whole premises upon which this tradition was based. He was wondering if he could stop this madness (if he could be that audacious to call it that) so that his son would not go through what he had undergone.
The Plate Alarm Rings….
"I see young men, my townsmen, whose misfortune it is to have inherited farms, houses, barns, cattle, and farming tools; for these are more easily acquired than got rid of."
-Walden, Henry David Thoreau
Chandra was ten. He was called by his mom whilst playing.
“Chandra”, she screamed.
“Yes, mom.”
“Time for you to come home”
“But its just been an hour and 3 minutes; I still have 27 minutes to go”
“Time for you to come home”
“But I still have to time..”
Then he heard the rigging sound of the spoon being hitting on the steel plate. His lamenting was in vain. It was the “Plate Alarm”. There was no point arguing with anyone when the plate alarm rang. All the children in the town ran into their houses hopping straight to the comforting security of their fathers' hugs. But not Chandra. He knew he had to wait where he stood. In the center of the playground stood his mother drumming a huge spoon on a large steel plate. The whole village knew what to expect. But not Chandra. He knew he had to wait where he stood, he was told that once in his life time (and only once) his mother would come out in the center of the playground and play the “Plate Alarm”. He was told that when that happened, he would stand wherever he was, and memorize all the best things that have happened to him as a child. Relive them; those joyful moments of childhood in his mind, for that was it, his childhood was over. The “Plate Alarm” terrorized the other kids as they knew its ringing meant some little innocent Ornot has just lost his childhood. They felt fortunate to have not been Ornot. But somewhere in their little egalitarian minds, they felt it was cool to be one.
oh baby you're so fine I wanna make you mine- backstreet boys
Dear Puppy Manohar,
My Father - Baby Vaijayanthi
My father is a peculiar man, never the less as they all say (and as good Indians ought to) I am proud of him. He stands six feet tall, broad shoulders and in his prime must have swept a lot of women off their feet. He is straight but does not like to look at other peoples wives or jazzy women walking on the street seeking attention (like Vijay's dad or for that matter all grown women). He prefers to walk on street pondering over situations that would never ever happen. Come to think about it, its a tough task, but as mother would put it, "Has no utility what so ever". But its a cool thing, you know, like he comes up with the most irrelevant gifts one could ever give ex. an ipod to your grandmother, a years stalk of staple pins to your father in law or irrelevant inventions like a tea cup with a USB Port. I thinks its pretty futuristic and I believe my dad is cool.
My father is an industrious and sincere worker. He works as a chair at his office. People sit on him.Thats his job. He loves it. Also, of all the other chairs at his branch, people prefer to sit only on him. Everyone who is anyoe sits on him. He is a great team player and is loved and appreciated in his team. He is commended for his work ethic and never say die attitude. Being an extremely versatile professional, he also proactively manages to become a ladder. There is nothing more satisfying than to see people climb up on your shoulders, he says. He has also taken up various other positions for the benefit of the company he works for. Once, he was, much to his ignorance deployed as a corporate spy by the HR. I will one day grow up to become a chair just like my dad. I hope, by then, women are seen in better light as professionals in India than they are seen today.
On account of his superior gene pool and fairer complexion, he acquires a special position in our patriarchal family hierarchy. My mother, apparently, fell for him due to this very reason and her family in their infinite eugenic consciousness were quick to comply. My father, though is not a racist, can not stand people with silly pants. He believes all humans are created equal and should be discriminated only on the basis of their trousers. According to him people with no sub-pelvic dressing sense are uncivilized savages who need to be reformed. This, according to our family psychiatric is a psychological disorder probably induced due to the tight pants he was made to wear as a 70s kid.. Alternatively, according to the doctor, this could be a genetic trait, because all our family patriarchs have always maintained some peculiar criterion to discriminate people and essentially reproach their ways of life to render them inferior. But many of our family members have insisted that the psychiatric is "a smug liberal bastard who just wants to show off his Ivy league education with his ostentatious scientific language and egalitarian concepts of the 18th century french gay-warts". I don't like my religion (that much).
Me and my father spend a lot of time together. We generally do a lot of experiments together. My father despises dogs. He admittedly, does not quite like Manohar's presence in the family. He believes its an act of clear intrusion. "The country is going to the dogs", he mutters. Manohar, does not wear pants. This according to him is a clear sign that he is not suitable for our family. "If after, such long association with the humans, dogs did not learn to wear pants, they never will" But he believes that he can successfully transform Manohar in to a human being. According to the Ancient Hindu Science, Manohar was a Brahmin boy who committed adultery in his last birth. Consequently, he is a dog in this birth. My father is not a huge fan of Karma. Never the less, he diligently and open mindedly considers all avenues towards achieving our goals. Besides such research we also do simple experiments like converting household spices in to opiates like morphine. Recently, we trapped a female anopheles in a transparent plastic container (initially filled with mouth-freshners) We intend to investigate her intestinal contents to track her path. This research according to dad would have serious ramifications in various fields from criminal psychology to immunology.
My father would get a Nobel Prize or the Fields Medal if that happens. I would proud to see my dad get a nobel prize.
Baby V
"My father's canine hating heterosexual" (in the tune of "Papa Kehte hai")
